Every passenger waved his hand to the land so longed for after the tedious voyage, which had not been exempt from painful accidents. Every telescope was directed towards this first specimen of the American continent, and each saw it under a different aspect. The Yankee beheld in it his mother-land; the Southerner regarded these northern lands with a kind of scorn, the scorn of the conquered for the conqueror; the Canadian looked upon it as a man who had only one step to take to call himself a citizen of the Union; the Californian in his mind’s eye traversed the plains of the Far West, and crossing the Rocky Mountains had already set foot on their inexhaustible mines. The Mormonite, with elevated brow and scornful lip, hardly noticed these shores, but peered beyond to where stood the City of the Saints on the borders of Salt Lake, in the far-off deserts. As for the young lovers, this continent was to them the Promised Land. In the meanwhile the sky was growing more and more threatening. A dark line of clouds gathered in the zenith, and a suffocating heat penetrated the atmosphere as though a July sun was shining directly above us. “Would you like me to astonish you?” said the Doctor, who had joined me on the gangway. “Astonish me, Doctor?” “Well, then, we shall have a storm, perhaps a thunder-storm, before the day is over.” “A thunder-storm in the month of April!” I cried. “The ‘Great Eastern’ does not trouble herself about seasons,” replied Dean Pitferge, shrugging his shoulders. “It is a tempest called forth expressly on her account. Look at the threatening aspect of those clouds which cover the sky; they look like antediluvian animals, and before long they will devour each other.” “I confess,” said I, “the sky looks stormy, and were it three months later I should be of your opinion, but not at this time of year.” “I tell you,” replied the Doctor, growing animated, “the storm will burst out before many hours are past. I feel it like a barometer. Look at those vapours rising in a mass, observe that cirrus, those mares’ tails which are blending together, and those thick circles which surround the horizon. Soon there will be a rapid condensing of vapour, which will consequently produce electricity. Besides the mercury has suddenly fallen, and the prevailing wind is south-west, the only one which can brew a storm in winter.” “Your observations may be very true, Doctor,” said I, not willing to yield, “but who has ever witnessed a thunder-storm at this season, and in this latitude?”